Language divides. It breaks up geographies into easily differentiated territories. India is a sum of its many language areas, each demarcated with fuzzy—and at times porous—lines on the map.
The states Reorganisation Act of 1956 represents the big ethos of the specificity of states on linguistic lines. What started in 1886 as India’s first linguistic movement in the Bihar and Orissa province of yore, actually culminated in the birth of Orissa, the first Indian state to be reorganised on the lines of a spoken language. To date, Madhusudan Das is respected as the father of Odia nationalism. In 1956, all of it was put down on paper and the story of the many states of India, as divided on the basis of language, began.
In this long journey of 69 years, a lot of water has flowed under the many bridges of the many languages of India. Any language spoken by more than 10,000 people as a first language is considered to be ours. And that remains the beauty of Indian polity, politics and the great reality of being an all-embracing Indian.
We love languages. We are linguists. Many of us speak five to six languages without a problem. We seamlessly switch from one to another depending where, and with whom, we are. Language, in more ways than one, does not belong to the state where it is spoken the most, as much as it does to the speaker.
When I want to get close with some of my childhood friends, I lapse into Telugu or Tamil. The connect is quick and memorable. When speaking to my waiter at a Darshini restaurant in Bengaluru, who is from Uttar Pradesh, I switch to Hindi. My auto driver gets a bit of Malayalam or Telugu or Tamil. When I connect with a client in Ahmedabad in Gujarati, it lights up his eyes. What’s the problem with language then? Actually, there is none. There is one only when we want to create it.
The issue is once again on the boil on the political front. Its focus now is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin’s decision to replace the Indian rupee symbol that springs from the Devanagari script with a more local Tamil ‘Ru’ (for Rubaai). It started with the budget document for 2025-26 tabled in the state assembly.
All this emerges from the larger backdrop of the heated debate on the National Education Policy and its implementation or non-implementation by states such as Tamil Nadu and many others. The debate hinges on the larger conspiracy theory that the Union government is trying to thrust Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking states. The theory, if believed, will have an impact on all of south India, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Punjab and Odisha.
Those who have watched the debate, the fracas, the noise, the passion, and, at times, even the violence that results from any stirring of the otherwise peaceful pot of language, will appreciate that it gives political leverage that many parties will happily use. Interestingly, language is a subject that seamlessly crosses party lines and is more of a people’s issue than any other.
After poverty, language is possibly one of the most real and emotive people issues there is to embrace. It’s about all the people in a state. It’s not about the leaders alone. Both the ruling party and the opposition need to tread carefully on the issue. No party can afford to take a stance against the state’s most dominant spoken languages, never mind what the parties’ national leadership says.
And here lies the dilemma. If you are with the state, you have to be with the language of the state. You have to protect it on the state formation day and every other day. You need to fight against any injustice to it. You need to come to its rescue whenever there is an unexpressed demand to do that.
In many ways, it is quite like the holy relationship you have with a sister you had tied a rakhi to. Most of the time there is just no need to rush to a sister’s rescue. You symbolically tie and renew your ties on Raksha Bandhan day. But, when the need arises, you are required to be by your sister’s side with all the zest you can summon.
Language will therefore divide people when it is summoned to do so. The debate and the fracas around it are best left untouched in normal times, as it has the habit of burning more than what must be burnt. Language is a passion, a love and a spirit. When you summon this spirit, it’s difficult to let it go. And even after it leaves the center-stage of the debate, it leaves raging embers and scars. These embers will wait to be stoked again. The passion for language can never ever be broken. It is not meant to be.
The current debate is best left to die out. The individual states of India in the federal structure have the volition to do what they do. If they are allowed to do just that, and if the majority of the people of the state are willing, let it be. Any further discussion, debate and action will only go to flame the embers into a fiery debate. This kind of debate does help political parties more than the people. The people, by and large, love peace and quiet.
In reality, India has big issues to grapple with. Job loss is one. Protecting the jobs of those who have one is another. Health—both physical and mental—is a big issue. And there are six other big issues to deal with to get India onto the fast track of becoming a developed nation. Let us focus more on that and let language be. In reality, language unites. When I speak in the language you want me to, I create love. When you see me stepping out of my zone of comfort to speak to you in Marathi in Mumbai, you think of me as one with you. When more and more people will see more and more of this, language will only unite.
The beauty of India lies in its many languages. What you give is what you get. When you speak the local language, you become a part of the system. It’s prudent to be with the system, than against it. It makes good business sense as well. My tyre dealer in Bengaluru, a sardarji, speaks great Kannada. He speaks to me in Kannada. I like him. He speaks to my wife in Telugu, and she likes him. He speaks to Mrs Mahapatra in Odiya, and she likes him too.
What’s in a rupee symbol anyway? A rupee with any other symbol is just as dear. Isn’t it? In more ways than one.
(Views are personal)
(harishbijoor@hotmail.com)
Harish Bijoor | Brand Guru and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults